Abbott "Pete" Smith D.V.M.: June 16, 1938 - February 22, 2010 Virginia Joyann "Jody" Haley Smith: April 2, 1938 - May 9, 2021 |
We've had the flu for several weeks at my house. I hope you're sidestepping germs and doing well. No one wants the flu or anything like it. If you're germ free, don't avoid celebrations this holiday season, just be careful and take your vitamins. If you're feeling puny, please stay home. We need celebrations, festivities, friends, and family. Stay well.
Speaking of family, we return this week to Jody's mother, Virginia (aka Meme) and her pink booklet of family history. If you missed the intro, read the Frist Section here. Here's the Second Section of Meme's musings...
Second Section: Things I remembered at an early age
When the wind blew the living room curtains (southwest), for some unknown reason, I might get the croup - difficulty to breath and a substance in my throat that caused choking. Mother would do everything she could for me and finally would phone Uncle Doc saying, "This is Stubby." Uncle Doc would say, "I'll be right over" as he knew it would be serious as mother rarely called. I do not know how old I was, but before nine. Some of the following was told to me and I think I remember the angels singing. Uncle Doc was standing on a chair holding my legs, my grandmother was pounding my back, my mother was on the floor trying to get the substance out of my throat. Uncle Doc said, "Stubby, you will never raise her to be a teenager." That was a long night. Everyone must have been worn out.
The 'Facts of Life' were presented to me in a beautiful way. After church one Sunday evening instead of going into the house, mother said, "It's such a lovely evening and I want to talk to you." I was about nine. She explained in detail, I thought, but now I know it was just the high points. "Don't let a boy or man, that means any man but a doctor, touch you." In trying to remember back in those days, there was no radio, TV or any communication but telephone (not everyone had one), only newspapers and religious magazines.
In 1923 Mother was finishing up her accreditations for her AB Degree at Ohio Northern, Ada, Ohio. So she was gone all week or weeks at a time. I stayed at home with my grandmother and housekeeper. Halloween time was always a fun time. Sometimes not the best way to have fun. The boys and three girls came after me to go to the schoolhouse. The principal's son was there and had his father's pride and joy cow. I was supposed to be the 'look out' while the others pushed the cow up the stairs to the office. What a mess the next A.M. But none of us had to help clean up and I really don't know if we were ever found out.
1924-25 Mother had a job in Ansonia, Ohio. We ate at the hotel but lived in a private home. Being the new girl in town, I had a great time; never walked to or from school alone, etc. One day, the girl next door kept signaling me and sent notes that she had to talk to me. She had a steady boyfriend that had been extra nice to me. Of course, that's what I thought bothered her. Finally, we met on a bench in the park on our way home. She burst into tears immediately and I finally found out she was "that way" as it was said in those days. The night before, Harold, the boyfriend, had insisted on kissing her, she tried to fight him off. Of course, I said what was the reason she didn't want to be kissed? Now she would be having a baby and did I know what to do? She was so serious and upset I couldn't laugh. I asked if her mother ever talked to her, and she was horrified at the suggestion. So I tried to explain a few 'Facts of Life' and I had a shadow the rest of the time I was in Ansonia. Mother sent me back to Forest to graduate with my class in 1925. I've never had the reason to return to Ansonia, Ohio, although I 'd made some very true friends.
Another Story: Elementary
The seat of the desk was attached to the real part of the writing desk and the boy that sat behind me would put my curls in the ink well. There were no fountain pens, just a pen that came off the handle. One had to dip the pen in the inkwell in the desk to get the ink, the ink would get on my wool Middy Blouse and was hard to get out. There was one boy, Justin Farmer, that was always putting my curls in the ink wells. When I complained, the teacher said, "Don't you realize Virginia, he likes you and is trying to get your attention?"
When we dipped the blouse in gasoline every month, some of my friends told the teacher about it and he wasn't allowed to go on the playground for a couple of days. No one really liked him as his mother sewed him in his underwear at Thanksgiving time and by Easter the aroma was unbelievable. But you have to remember there was very little heat in the schoolhouse. In one class he [Justin] sat in front of me. One day in study hall he threw something back over his head and it hit my face and fell in my lap. It was a dead mouse. I had had enough of him and I took the large geography book and hit him on top of his head, knocking him off his seat and he hit the wall and laid on the floor. The teacher said, "Virginia, whatever did you do that for? Aren't you sorry?" Of course, I said, "No, not when I got hit with this," and I tossed the dead mouse on her desk just as the principal came in to see what all the commotion was about. After that they called me "Don't touch Virginia."
I guess because my mother was the Drama and Public School Music teacher, I was supposed to be a perfect student. I knew they would ask me what I was going to wear - wool or cotton - there were no pants or jeans for girls, so there was no problem there.
Most of the girls had two "Middy Blouses" one for school, one for Sundays. On rare occasions, they stayed home from school because their blouse wasn't ready to wear. But Virginia had 14 Middy Blouses - heavy ones, light ones, white, black, yellow, orange, and red. Years later a friend told me they would bet which color I'd wear the next school day. I never realized I had so many Midday Blouses. I never asked for anything - I'd always find a quarter by my plate every Sunday which was big money. Most kids got a dime.
The dress code was to be neat and clean. Jeans and pants for girls was unheard of. Middy Blouses were in wool or cotton. We cleaned the wool Middy Blouse on a Saturday, dipping it in gasoline to clean and hung it to dry in the shade to air. I was a lucky one, I never asked for anything and always had a great selection of clothes as every Spring and Fall a seamstress spent a week at our house getting our clothes ready for the coming season. Remember, there were no clothing stores to pick out a dress, just yard goods to make the dress. To play basketball, we wore bloomers, a baggy full item with rubber at the knees. Most of my friends had three Middy Blouses, one special for Sunday, two for school. I had 14 - every color. My favorite was navy blue with a large white collar and blue stars on the white collar. Then a pretty yellow one with a tan anchor on the collar. A white one with a red heart on the corner of the collar. All were wool and itchy as I as allergic to wool, so Uncle Doc gave me a pill each day. I believe they were just sugar pills. Anyway they helped.
The word 'sex' was never written or spoken that I can remember. My grandmother and I were sitting on the porch as we often did and she pointed to the corner upstairs room of the neighbor's house. (Both our houses were on the corner). She whispered, "Mrs. Poling is going to have her baby up there." I said, "Why are you whispering, there's no one else here?" She answered, "Nice people don't talk about such things, I should not have told you." How things have changed!!
I was taken to school at the age of five. Mother was the music teacher and she had some free time now and then. Remember, Forest [Ohio] was a good sized town, although small in space. There were no pre-schools, kindergartens or baby sitters, just hired help or people took the children with them. I learned very early to sit quietly and make no noise. The school was on the other side of the railroad tracks. The Big Four and the Penna trains crossed in Forest so that men on the baggage cars made Forest the "end of the line" for them. Chicago to New York runs, Toledo to Cincy on the Big Four. One of my best friends' father would have anywhere from a four-day layover to two weeks and they lived accordingly. Many times I was told "You can do anything you want to at any time and don't have to wait till your father comes home. Your mother can buy anything she wants to and doesn't have to ask permission." I had a different life than my friends in many ways.
Some liked to play ball with their brother or hid and seek. Play with dolls? Not me. I dressed my cat "Bugie" (actually an alley cat) in doll clothes, bonnet and booties - the works - and put the poor thing in the doll buggy. I didn't realize it, nor they, were jealous. One evening, the Postmaster called for me to come and get my baby. They wanted to close up. The baby had been there since four o'clock. One of my friends (?) had taken the buggy to tease me and left it at the post office. Since I often accompanied my grandmother to collect the rent and most always had the cat, they knew where it belonged. That building and the Honeymoon apartments were always the last for us to visit. We lived in the house next to the apartments (everyone lived downtown next to their business) on the ground floor. My grandfather's grocery store was on the corner, middle room was a variety store and at the end a Millinery store. Oh how I wish I could chew gum and make a hat like Miller could. There were benches outside in front of the stores where men waited on their families.
One day, my grandmother saw a man grab me and hug me and she was very upset. Soon after, we moved down the street into a house "built for a bride." I was really lost as I was born in the downtown house. It had a porch on all four sides. A parlor that was only used on Sundays when people stopped to visit. A sitting room, door to side porch opened into, was used the most. A bedroom off the sitting room and a long room that was the dining room, which had a side porch off of it, a pantry and extra storage room. Then the huge kitchen, another panty, a pump room and a back porch plus a smokehouse and six seater out-house. There were no bathrooms with toilets - all outside toilets. (Our bathtub was in the pump room). Yes, it was a huge house, even for those days. There were four bedrooms with closets (unusual) upstairs. There was a closet in the bedroom downstairs also. Of course, the only lights we had were kerosene oil lamps which we never carried from room to room as most people did as we had, as a rule, two lamps in each room. My grandmother told a story about the first lamps she saw. As a little girl they had only candles and oil in a bowl. The fumes from the oil burning were dreadful. A neighbor invited the family over one evening to show a surprise - a lamp! When they got home the conversation was about the great invention of the oil being put in the lamp. And they all at once said, "We could see the dust in the corner of the room." And decided they wouldn't hurry and buy one.
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More of Meme's pink pamphlet next week. Enjoy the journey to Christmas.
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